This invention relates generally to computer user interfaces and specifically to a computer user interface that has a first area for displaying windows in an overlapped arrangement and a second area for displaying windows in a tiled arrangement.
A popular way to present information to users of today's computer systems is via a graphical user interface (GUI). GUIs are usually part of the environment provided by the operating system of a computer. However, application programs can also create their own GUI by displaying objects on the screen independently of utilities provided by the operating system. A combination of these two approaches can also be used.
While GUIs may vary from operating system to operating system and from application program to application program, there are basic components in contemporary GUIs that find themselves in virtually all GUIs. Most popular GUIs use a "mouse and windowing" environment where the user interacts with the computer by using a pointer displayed on the screen and manipulated by a hand held "mouse" input device. Information is displayed to the user within windows that are rectangular areas on the screen containing text or graphics related to the operation of an application program or an operating system. Other characteristic features common in GUIs are icons, menus, etc.
A "window" is the central way to provide information to, and receive information from, a user. There are usually one or more active windows on the display screen at any given time. Each window conveys information about an application program or other process executing in the computer. There may be multiple windows for a single application program or process where each window is used to convey different types of information. There can be multiple views of the same information such as two text windows showing overlapping portions of the same document. Typically, the computer system displays information within the window and accepts information from the user, sometimes in the form of special windows called "dialog boxes". The user often has some control over the existence, placement and size of a window and sometimes can even control the amount and type of information conveyed by the window. For a more detailed discussion of the use of windows in typical computer systems, see, e.g., "Microsoft Windows Version 3.1 User's Guide," by Microsoft, Inc.
Windows are manipulated both by the computer and by the human user. Windows can be opened and closed, causing them to appear or disappear, respectively, on the display screen. Usually windows can be resized by the user so that their height and width may be adjusted. The information within the window can be scrolled if the window is able to show only a portion of the total information. Windows can be moved around on the screen so that they may be positioned virtually anywhere and they may be overlapped by positioning a portion of one window over another. When windows overlap the "top" window is the only window that is completely visible since the bottom window is partially obscured by any window or windows on top of it.
As application programs become larger and more complex, the likelihood of windows overlapping on the display screen increases. Typically, an application program has a single main, or "parent," window. Within the parent window multiple "child" windows are displayed. During the execution of an application program the child windows are manipulated by both the computer and user and inevitably overlap. The presence of multiple overlapping child windows on a screen requires that that user constantly shuffle through the windows in order to find the correct window with the information that is of interest at the moment. This is similar to a person rummaging around on a cluttered desk trying to find the proper document. A similar problem exists with parent windows, themselves, in a multitasking environment when more than one application program is executing. In this case the computer may cause one application program's parent window to obscure the child or parent windows of another application program.
Current GUIs, such as WINDOWS by Microsoft, Inc., and the Macintosh operating system by Apple Computer, Inc., are not sufficiently helpful in managing multiple overlapping windows. In these operating systems there is no guarantee that critical information about a window will always be visible.
For example, the title name in the "title bar" of a window might be obscured along with the contents of the window. The GUI provides commands for arranging windows so that at least a small portion of each window is visible. This allows the user to grab and move the window or to bring the window to the top so it is completely visible. However, the small portion of the window that is visible is often not enough to identify the window so the user must "click" on each window in turn until finding the proper window. This is cumbersome when there are many windows on the screen and only tiny portions of several windows' corners are exposed.
Another problem arises in that the user often wishes to view the information in a window continuously during the operation of a program. However, the computer may decide that another window is important if it is being updated, for example. The computer attempts to bring the updated window to the front of a pile of overlapping windows. In traditional GUIs the user can get around this problem by resizing and moving windows so that there is enough room to place the window of interest off to the side in an area where it won't be overlapped. However, this requires a lot of manipulation by the user that must be repeated every time the user wants to insure that a different window isn't obscured. Also, there is no guarantee that the computer, under the direction of the operating system or an application program, won't decide to overlay additional windows over the user's window of interest. When multiple windows are being updated quickly it often becomes impossible for the user to see all of the information desired due to obscured windows.
The user may also designate a window to always be "on top" of other windows to solve the problem of being able to continuously view a window of interest. This has the drawback that an updated window containing important information can be obscured by the window given "top" priority by the user. Another drawback is that only one window can be guaranteed to be on top at any one time.
Application programs and operating systems attempt to alleviate these problems somewhat by using a fixed "status line" at the bottom of the parent window. However, the status line is very restrictive in that only a small amount of text can be displayed and the user has no control over the type of information that is designated for the status line.
Early operating systems used "tiled" or "cascaded" window arrangements to eliminate the problem of overlapping windows. When windows are arranged in a tiled manner, each window is adjacent to other windows that may exist on the screen. That is, the window borders abut much like tiles on a floor. An example of an early operating system that used this approach is Microsoft Windows Version 1.0 by Microsoft, Inc. However, the tiled approach has generally been given up in favor of the overlapped window arrangement because the tiled arrangement was too limited in the number of windows that could be displayed and in the user's ability to resize and reposition windows.
The cascaded arrangement overlaps the windows but insures that at least a small portion of each window is available for manipulation. As mentioned above, this is often not enough to allow the user to identify each window or to perform all of the functions desired in a window of interest.
From the above discussion it is apparent that problems exist in traditional GUIs when multiple windows are displayed in that a window of interest may be obscured. This is especially true when the computer system continually opens and displays new windows of various sizes and importance in different positions on the display screen during the execution of an application program.